....We don't know. And actually, that's the correct response to someone who asks you a question that you don't know the answer to. It's also a far cry better to say that than it is to make up some stupid shit about an invisible man in the sky who snaps his fingers and poofs a universe into being.

... Faith that it's a toaster is stupid. Faith that your personal version of god was responsible for the big bang is equally stupid.

...Better that than say something dumb.

Have you ever asked a theist how stupid an atheist is? I suspect you might find some disagreement with the response.

Can you see that you made up the bits in italics?

I never said you were stupid. Believing in things like your version of God is stupid, but on the whole, you might be average intelligence.

I noticed you didn't address the major points of my post. Why don't you look over the rest of it and respond to what I wrote instead of taking this tangent?

Logged

Whenever events that are purported to occur in our best interest are as numerous as the events that will just as soon kill us, then intent is hard, if not impossible to assert. NDT

Before I respond to you, could you please say if I correctly captured the essence of the central premise of WWGHA? If not please correct me so we may avoid errors in inferencing and misunderstandings.

And in case you missed it in an earlier post I re-state here for your benefit:

I am a critical thinking born again bible believing christian. (I also believe in science and the existence of non-material evidence). I have faith. Plenty of faith. And so there are many things that I don't know but believe in their existence by faith.

Please stop me if this sounds like 'advertising my opinions' which is against forum rules(and a touch tasteless, if I may say so, as it sounds off like there is something I am selling). But it is becoming increasing difficult to have a discussion without laying down some basic foundations. If you feel at any point that I crossed your forum lines please pull the guillotine as you have the powers as moderator.

Fundamentally, I think you have a good understanding of the premise, although I feel a tinge of bias (which is common on both sides, I admit).

What I wanted you to accept, if you agree, is that you may be in a minority position as a Christian, given that you don't seem to accept that YHWH literally changes a person's physiology with his "powers", in response to sincere prayer. Is that accurate?

I would argue that non-believers are happy to accept reasonable explanations for things we don't fully understand, but generally speaking, they prefer to go with "I don't know" when it comes to things that science has no explanation for. What caused the Big Bang? No idea...but I certainly accept that it happened - given the current facts and evidence available. Does YHWH exist? I don't know, but I see no reason to think he does. As science has never had even a reasonable hypothesis on the existence of YHWH, I remain less than convinced that the long-held belief in YHWH is anything more than the continued mythology of past societies, carried forward.

The important thing to remember is that there is literally no reason to consider a god, unless there is some evidence to support it. At this time, no god has ever been shown to exist, and in fact, all man-made gods so far have been placed in the category of mythology. I'm not sure why YHWH gets any special "believability" points, as gods go.

Here is an analogy to help you see what you're doing here. Say you're walking down the street with 2 of your friends and you all come upon a plain cardboard box in front of you that you've never seen before. Your ask your first friend what's inside the box and he says he doesn't know. You ask your second friend and he is adamant that there is a toaster in the box. Upon asking your second friend how he knows it's a toaster, he says that a toaster would fit inside the box, and that he has faith it's a toaster. Which of your 2 friends is being more reasonable? For me, it's friend 1.

This analogy makes an incorrect fundamental assumption. First of all I am not adamant about anything. I believe in God by faith. I accept that you have difficulty with someone who might be of average intelligence holding that believe.

I think you should have stuck with silence than come up with this kind of analogy because it betrays the impression that you are not quite with the fundamental nature of the question that is at issue here.

That is all I expect from an atheist because by the nature of the fact that you are a healthy skeptic, you should not be unequivocal on something you do not know. And that is the same with me. The difference is that I have faith - which you dismiss. As a matter of interest, do you have faith in anything?

.... and I am sure you can rationalize that your particular god could be responsible for the creation of the universe; but in the absence of any sort of evidence to separate your particular god theory from every other possible theory we can come up with, it's absolutely ridiculous to claim that your personal version of god is responsible. Just like its ridiculous to guess that a toaster is inside a box that you've never seen before, just because it would fit inside.

That would be an informed quess - and I suggest not as ridiculous as you imagine. In any event, faith has little to do with guessing. e.g I have faith that you have a mind. Can you proof the existence of your mind to me?

You make it seem as though your guesswork has a leg up on us because at least you're taking some sort of position and we're not Fine... If you value taking ANY position over waiting for sufficient evidence, then I can't stop you from doing that. But you're doing exactly the same thing as the person who has faith that there is a toaster in the box in my example above, and then claiming that they've somehow taken a superior position to that of the person who says they don't know what's in the box.

This claim is no more respectable than the claim that a toaster is in the box. Faith that it's a toaster is stupid. Faith that your personal version of god was responsible for the big bang is equally stupid.

Can we get off this 'Faith is stupid' horse please? Can you see that 'Faith' cannot be conscious?

OK so let's wait and see which of these positions is proven to be true in time then, shall we? You need to be patient, as perhaps in a couple of billion years our amputees would possibly be growing limbs as easily as doing hula hoops ...

given that you don't seem to accept that YHWH literally changes a person's physiology with his "powers", in response to sincere prayer. Is that accurate?

Yes. And I have given my rationale for this in many places already. I said there is no scriptural basis for this. That is a false doctrine. God always works through humans as co-creators when it comes to such physical miracles. Further more, by necessity prayer must be separated from such miracles. You will see that there were no prayers for such miracles before they were executed recorded in scripture. And as to Jesus healing the blind - you will read that he used something physical - And he had 2 gos to get it right. I hope I have not lost you in all that.

Yes. And I have given my rationale for this in many places already. I said there is no scriptural basis for this. That is a false doctrine. God always works through humans as co-creators when it comes to such physical miracles. Further more, by necessity prayer must be separated from such miracles. You will see that there were no prayers for such miracles before they were executed recorded in scripture. And as to Jesus healing the blind - you will read that he used something physical - And he had 2 gos to get it right. I hope I have not lost you in all that.

I've drawn the same conclusion that biological healing is limited to what the body can accomplish due to spiritual renewal. However, I do believe that such healing can go far beyond the limits of the normal bell curve of data we would use.Many things the spiritually healed body can accomplish would be, and have been, considered miracles. That's my current view on healing.

At the risk of this be classed as a dodge - let me try.Being in the minority - worldwide? or only in some geographic locations? I have no way of knowing this.

Well, I suppose without any data, I couldn't say for certain. It's a gut feel based on my personal experience, and there may certainly be a geographic element, as religions tend to have that dynamic naturally. I think more Christians than not, believe that YHWH answers prayers. I would find it surprising if that turned out to be false.

Quote from: zele

Yes. And I have given my rationale for this in many places already. I said there is no scriptural basis for this. That is a false doctrine. God always works through humans as co-creators when it comes to such physical miracles. Further more, by necessity prayer must be separated from such miracles. You will see that there were no prayers for such miracles before they were executed recorded in scripture. And as to Jesus healing the blind - you will read that he used something physical - And he had 2 gos to get it right. I hope I have not lost you in all that.

That's an interesting position on prayer, and one that I don't hear often. Have you already commented on what you believe to be the purpose of prayer, coming from scripture? Apologies if I missed it.

A couple of comments. First, keep in mind that no two christians are ever alike, so we often have to go through a vetting process to figure out which parts of the bible a newbie likes, and which parts he or she doesn't like. We're not too structured as we parry and dodge fresh meat, so it may come across as disorganized, which it probably is.

In the meantime, we tend to make assumption based on each of our individual versions of a generic christian. Please be patient. It's not our fault there are so many different kinds of you.

As for the amputee question, please keep in mind that we have had many insightless conversations with theists of all stripes about this particular issue, and it is getting old. Again, we have to contend with a variety of custom christian viewpoints, and we end up spending pages and pages just parsing the claims and taking aspirin to ward off theist-caused headaches. The issue is most certainly not off the table, but please don't expect a plethora of enthusiastic atheists to respond in such a way that you get a good fight out of the deal. You are giving the question more importance than the rest of us. We would change the name of the site if we had a chance, but the owner isn't in any way inclined to do that.

I, for one, am not an atheist because I disbelieve the bible. I am an atheist because I trust that science is on the right track, and so far, science hasn't found any definitive proof of a god. Nor a need for one. Obviously that is in part an opinion, but hey, I'm allowed.

I am not a theist because none of the many religions or many denominations have offered up anything that is the least bit believable to me. And that is key. Because belief is the bottom line for most of them.

I have often asked how a fake religion would differ from one that had a real christian god behind it, and nobody has ever tried to answer. Why a real god would insist on belief, just the way all the fake religions do, is just too weird to me to be believable. And the truth of a true religion should kind of, you know, provide consistency not only within itself but within the reality we all experience. And, unless you count very loose generic descriptions of human foibles, the bible offers up nothing else that aligns with reality, unless wishful thinking is an innate human trait.

We have a term we use around here, SPAG, which means "self projection as god". We tend to start interpreting the individual versions of your religion as the above-mentioned wishful thinking of each believer, who accepts, rejects and invents the type of religion he or she is most comfortable with. And that individual versions tend to be a pretty good mirror of who or what that person is inside. Really, really sweet people who are christians will tell us that we aren't going to hell because their god would never punish anyone for an eternity, and asshole christians will insist we are all going to fry forever because we are worthless crap, unworthy of their venerated savior and/or his daddy.

I know exactly why god doesn't heal amputees. He doesn't exist. That explains everything. And until someone can at least empirically demonstrate that christians have better, happier, healthier lives, that they experience fewer premature deaths, survive natural disasters at a higher rate or otherwise demonstrate that they experience real world advantages, I am not likely to take any variation of the tale seriously.

So while we non-believers here try to figure out which parts of the bible you find convenient, which parts you consider allegory and/or metaphor or fable or just plain right or wrong, we envy you for getting to argue with us, a group that is much more coherent because we don't have to squabble a lot over whether chloroplasts in plants are part of the photosynthetic process or to ward off lightening. We don't have to worry that gravity is only a theory as we aim our spacecraft at Mars and land them there. We don't have to divide physics into two churches because half the parishioners think string theory is correct and the other half don't. We all get to play nice together without building separate buildings to worship our personal take on atmospheric factors and/or fossils. Those doing the science do the best they can with current and new knowledge, while the rest of us, who are cheering them on, do our best not to get suckered into religious silliness which accomplishes nothing, if you don't count jihads and stuff.

If you want to argue, there are plenty of us here who will do that. But you'll be disappointed if you think that you automatically know what our issues are.

and our confidence in them grows as they continue to be regular. But they are not absolute, and in fact, we can say nothing about them prior to the singularity which was prior to the Big Bang.

I hope you can see that the bits in bold require quite a leap of faith. My response to this is that I don't know.

How does saying that we can say nothing about a specific phenomena prior to another phenomena require a "leap of faith"? There is no "leap of faith" when one admits they do not know. Even more, pretending to know about the origin of the known universe (when you don't) doesn't solve anything or get us anywhere closer to discovering the truth.

How current? I am still trawling through 'A History of Philosophy' by Thomas Taylor and with the information explosion age, there is a lot to take in.

I'll take it the answer is "No" then, to my question regarding how much studying you have done on the freewill/determinism debate. See "Freewill" by Kane (textbook) and perhaps we can discuss this subject at a later time.

Perhaps you do not understand the term "theology" b/c what you just wrote above is, in part, a theological position (i.e. - a position regarding what you think about "God"). What does this term "God" mean? How do you know it is real? How do you know it is "not all powerful"? Why do you keep referring to it as a "he"? Please demonstrate these claims.

The leap of faith was your proclamation on the Big Bang - or is that as real as the tooth ferry? So what 'banged' ? You can't answer so silence from you ... as you are perhaps frightened out of your wits to think past that point - go on, I invite you to try hard and reason past that point. And whilst we are both there, I take it on faith that God caused the bang. you keep silent. OK so let's wait and see which of these positions is proven to be true in time then, shall we? You need to be patient, as perhaps in a couple of billion years our amputees would possibly be growing limbs as easily as doing hula hoops ...

Taking your position "on faith" is exactly the problem (i.e. - assuming your position in advance is absurd). I have made no "leap of faith" because I have made no claim regarding what or how our known universe originated. And your position is based upon a big argument from ignorance fallacy. "I can't understand how X happened, therefore 'God' did it." You seem to be the one taking a leap of faith. But leaps of faith are unreliable for determining fact from fiction and have been demonstrated as leading to egregious errors. What you are doing is practicing CREDULITY - instead of admitting that you don't have a sound answer.

Btw, why would you want to "reason past that point" by asserting a mysterious alleged deity named Yahweh? And no, I'm not silent and I will not just wait like you will. I will investigate, research, do homework, work hard, and above all REJECT CREDULITY.

The God I believe in does not break the laws he has put in place. That would violate the integrity of the system.

Then you reject the 5 loaves and a fish kind of miracle altogether? I've known a xian or two who felt that way also. When I was briefly a deist before leaving gods altogether, I also believed that god did not do miracles like that. I believed god got the ball rolling at the "beginning" and then did nothing. Completely hands off.

If I understand you correctly, you envision a universe that has rules and cause and effect. So every outcome is non-random. That is to say, each particle is where it is, doing what it is doing because of it's history and the effects of natural laws.

The thing is, how can this god "work through people" without also breaking a rule? Even subtle influence requires energy input into the system that is not accounted for. In order for a god to nudge my decision from A (the normal decision I would have made without tampering) to B (the decision god made working "through" me), something has to be moved, a rule has to be broken.

This analogy makes an incorrect fundamental assumption. First of all I am not adamant about anything.

Oh! Ok, then. Pardon me. Let me change a word or 2 here and you can give it another go. Ignore the first one and just address this one.

Say you're walking down the street with 2 of your friends and you all come upon a plain cardboard box in front of you that you've never seen before. Your ask your first friend what's inside the box and he says he doesn't know. You ask your second friend and he says there is a toaster in the box. Upon asking your second friend how he knows it's a toaster, he says that he has faith that it's a toaster. Which of your 2 friends is being more reasonable?

I believe in God by faith. I accept that you have difficulty with someone who might be of average intelligence holding that believe.

You're right. I do have a problem with that. Just as much as I have a problem with the guy who says he has faith that there's a toaster in the box. My intuition tells me you'd have a problem with him too.

That is all I expect from an atheist because by the nature of the fact that you are a healthy skeptic, you should not be unequivocal on something you do not know. And that is the same with me. The difference is that I have faith - which you dismiss.

In other words, you turn off your healthy skepticism when it comes to your God. Faith, of the kind you practice when it comes to God, is not a virtue in any sense. You've probably been taught that it is, but it's not. It's not virtuous to have faith that there's a toaster in the box, and it's certainly not virtuous to have faith in God.

No. Religion is not an informed guess. It's the prototypical uninformed guess. Let me give you an example to illustrate...

In the past, people believed an earthquake was God voicing his anger. This, as you probably know (since you're living in the 21st century) was an uninformed guess. The informed guess is plate tectonics, not God. The more things we learn like that, the more we realize that God was nothing more than the uninformed guess of the masses who had nothing else to look to for answers.

I didn't say it was bad. In fact, it is a perfectly legitimate stance to take. However, you appear to be very vocal against someone taking a stance on grounds of faith.

Because in every other area of discourse, appealing to faith will get you laughed out of the building; and I see no reason to think God belief should get a special pass in that regard. Tell me why faith in God is respectable, but faith that there's a toaster in the box isn't.

If you won't, then I will. The atheist position of not having faith in God is superior to the position of having faith in God in the exact same way that not having faith that there's a toaster in the box is superior to having faith that there's a toaster in the box.

No, I would not say that. I would say I know enough to have faith that the box contains a toaster.

No sir. Knowing is the opposite of having faith. If you have knowledge of something, then you don't need faith to believe in it. Let me continue the toaster example...

Say someone wrote a book (someone you don't know) that said there's a toaster in every box you come upon unexpectedly. Is that good enough to go on? Say they used the argument 'well, the box is big enough to fit a toaster'; is that good enough? What if a million people ALL said there was a toaster in the box, but not one of them had ever seen the box prior to saying there was a toaster in it; is that good enough? No, no, no. It's not good enough. This is the same thing with God. You don't know anything about God that wasn't told to you or that you read in a book. You have no evidence at all. You just don't. There's no evidence that leads to the conclusion that God is real.

I'm trying to jump in here at the best spot. There were 2 crosses near to the cross Jesus was nailed to and historians can't identify clearly who those guys were. They are typical....The one said: If you are the Christ, take us down from this cross (he might as well have asked:" heal this amputee"), the other (facing certain death) said: remember me. If you know the scripture, you're gonna die....

Logged

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

A couple of comments. First, keep in mind that no two christians are ever alike, so we often have to go through a vetting process to figure out which parts of the bible a newbie likes, and which parts he or she doesn't like. We're not too structured as we parry and dodge fresh meat, so it may come across as disorganized, which it probably is.

In the meantime, we tend to make assumption based on each of our individual versions of a generic christian. Please be patient. It's not our fault there are so many different kinds of you.

As for the amputee question, please keep in mind that we have had many insightless conversations with theists of all stripes about this particular issue, and it is getting old. Again, we have to contend with a variety of custom christian viewpoints, and we end up spending pages and pages just parsing the claims and taking aspirin to ward off theist-caused headaches. The issue is most certainly not off the table, but please don't expect a plethora of enthusiastic atheists to respond in such a way that you get a good fight out of the deal. You are giving the question more importance than the rest of us. We would change the name of the site if we had a chance, but the owner isn't in any way inclined to do that.

I, for one, am not an atheist because I disbelieve the bible. I am an atheist because I trust that science is on the right track, and so far, science hasn't found any definitive proof of a god. Nor a need for one. Obviously that is in part an opinion, but hey, I'm allowed.

I am not a theist because none of the many religions or many denominations have offered up anything that is the least bit believable to me. And that is key. Because belief is the bottom line for most of them.

I have often asked how a fake religion would differ from one that had a real christian god behind it, and nobody has ever tried to answer. Why a real god would insist on belief, just the way all the fake religions do, is just too weird to me to be believable. And the truth of a true religion should kind of, you know, provide consistency not only within itself but within the reality we all experience. And, unless you count very loose generic descriptions of human foibles, the bible offers up nothing else that aligns with reality, unless wishful thinking is an innate human trait.

We have a term we use around here, SPAG, which means "self projection as god". We tend to start interpreting the individual versions of your religion as the above-mentioned wishful thinking of each believer, who accepts, rejects and invents the type of religion he or she is most comfortable with. And that individual versions tend to be a pretty good mirror of who or what that person is inside. Really, really sweet people who are christians will tell us that we aren't going to hell because their god would never punish anyone for an eternity, and asshole christians will insist we are all going to fry forever because we are worthless crap, unworthy of their venerated savior and/or his daddy.

I know exactly why god doesn't heal amputees. He doesn't exist. That explains everything. And until someone can at least empirically demonstrate that christians have better, happier, healthier lives, that they experience fewer premature deaths, survive natural disasters at a higher rate or otherwise demonstrate that they experience real world advantages, I am not likely to take any variation of the tale seriously.

So while we non-believers here try to figure out which parts of the bible you find convenient, which parts you consider allegory and/or metaphor or fable or just plain right or wrong, we envy you for getting to argue with us, a group that is much more coherent because we don't have to squabble a lot over whether chloroplasts in plants are part of the photosynthetic process or to ward off lightening. We don't have to worry that gravity is only a theory as we aim our spacecraft at Mars and land them there. We don't have to divide physics into two churches because half the parishioners think string theory is correct and the other half don't. We all get to play nice together without building separate buildings to worship our personal take on atmospheric factors and/or fossils. Those doing the science do the best they can with current and new knowledge, while the rest of us, who are cheering them on, do our best not to get suckered into religious silliness which accomplishes nothing, if you don't count jihads and stuff.

If you want to argue, there are plenty of us here who will do that. But you'll be disappointed if you think that you automatically know what our issues are.

Edit: for clarity, next to last paragraph.

]Huh? You don't know what you're issues are? All mutations are deleterious (real, observable, science)......that's all the science you need to know that we started form some singular point.....a point that can be nothing other than a singular point (call it creation). With all observable, scientific observational mutations being deleterious, how can anything "evolve"?.

Logged

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

I'm trying to jump in here at the best spot. There were 2 crosses near to the cross Jesus was nailed to and historians can't identify clearly who those guys were. They are typical....The one said: If you are the Christ, take us down from this cross (he might as well have asked:" heal this amputee"), the other (facing certain death) said: remember me. If you know the scripture, you're gonna die....

Do you believe everything you read in ancient books? Why do you believe this one? Why should anyone take it as an authority on anything? Simply quoting the bible (or paraphrasing) doesn't make it's claims true.

I'm trying to jump in here at the best spot. There were 2 crosses near to the cross Jesus was nailed to and historians can't identify clearly who those guys were. They are typical....The one said: If you are the Christ, take us down from this cross (he might as well have asked:" heal this amputee"), the other (facing certain death) said: remember me. If you know the scripture, you're gonna die....

Do you believe everything you read in ancient books? Why do you believe this one? Why should anyone take it as an authority on anything? Simply quoting the bible (or paraphrasing) doesn't make it's claims true.

No, not all ancient books. But Newton wrote the Principia, which, all of our current mechanics (the power to run your computer, car, bridge you drive over, etc.) I use regularly designing heat pumps, etc. But, you are referring to the "Bible" I'm sure. Yes I take that as accurate. From a intellectual stand point, you should read "The Case for Christ". I didn't read that until after I believed, but it's good.

Logged

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Huh? You don't know what you're issues are? All mutations are deleterious (real, observable, science)......that's all the science you need to know that we started form some singular point.....a point that can be nothing other than a singular point (call it creation). With all observable, scientific observational mutations being deleterious, how can anything "evolve"?.

This is called the fallacy of a Complex Question. It makes an assumption that the answerer must assume in order to answer the question. I reject your premise that all mutations are "deleterious". You're quite mistaken. Have you ever even taken one biological anthropology course? How about a biology class in general? Ever talked to any biologists regarding this claim of yours? I hear a resounding ignorance gong coming.

Btw, the subject of evolution is a complete red-herring to whether a god exists. Even if all of the overwhelming evidence for evolutionary biology were overturned it wouldn't (in any way) give license to your religious assumptions. AT BEST you would have to answer, "I don't know" - not "God did it" b/c that is a non-answer. It explains nothing.

No, not all ancient books. But Newton wrote the Principia, which, all of our current mechanics (the power to run your computer, car, bridge you drive over, etc.) I use regularly designing heat pumps, etc. But, you are referring to the "Bible" I'm sure. Yes I take that as accurate. From a intellectual stand point, you should read "The Case for Christ". I didn't read that until after I believed, but it's good.

The list of Christian apologetics books I've read is nearly just as long as all others in my collection. I argued to "defend the faith" for nearly 15 years. Yes, I've read The Case for Christ, along with many many others (when I was a believe) and it's filled with fallacies, erroneous arguments, and misinformation.

Why would you first assume the bible is "the word of God" and then go about reading books that agree with your assumption. Don't you find that a bit backwards?

"Laboratory adaptive evolution can provide key information to address a wide range of issues in evolutionary biology. Such studies have been limited thus far by the inability to readily detect mutations on a genome-scale in evolved microbial strains. This limitation has now been overcome by recently-developed genome sequencing technology that readily allows us to identify all accumulated mutations that appear during laboratory adaptive evolution. In this study, we evolved Escherichia coli K-12 MG1655 on a non-native carbon source, L-1,2-propanediol (L-1,2-PDO) for approximately 700 generations. We found that; i) Experimental evolution of E. coli for approximately 700 generations in 1,2-PDO-supplemented minimal medium revealed the acquisition of the ability to use L-1,2-PDO as the sole carbon and energy source, from no growth at all initially, to a growth rate of 0.35 h(-1), ii) Six mutations detected by whole genome re-sequencing were accumulated in the evolved E. coli mutant over the course of adaptive evolution on L-1,2-PDO, iii) Five of six mutations were within coding regions, with IS5 insertion between two fuc regulons, iv) Two major mutations (mutations in fucO and its promoter) involved in L-1,2-PDO catabolism appeared early during adaptive evolution, v) Multiple defined knock-in mutant strains with all mutations had growth rates essentially matching that of the evolved strain. These results provide insight into the genetic basis underlying microbial evolution to growth on the non-native substrate. PMID: 20435762 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] "

This is where I get my evidence for creation. For these guys to get there "proof" of evolution, they need human involved experimentation (cloning, etc.) for their results. When they cloned "Dolly" it was a slam dunk. They don't talk about why Dolly died.

Logged

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

" that the answerer must assume in order to answer the question. I reject your premise that all mutations are "deleterious". You're quite mistaken. Have you ever even taken one biological anthropology course? How about a biology class in general? Ever talked to any biologists regarding this claim of yours? I hear a resounding ignorance gong coming."

Are these the "3" questions?

I'll assume they are. No. I'm an engineer who has researched/read extensively on the subject. Does that make me wrong? What are your credentials, thus making you an expert?

Logged

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.